Internet: Suicide

(asked on 13th February 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to bring forward legislative proposals to sanction search engine companies that do not remove websites that promote suicide.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 25th February 2020

The Government published the initial response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation on 12 February 2020. This confirmed that the Government is developing legislation on online harms to establish a new duty of care on companies towards their users, overseen by an independent regulator. Companies in scope will not be required to remove specific items of legal content; however, they will be required to put in place systems and processes to deal with harmful content, and in particular, to minimise the risk of young people and vulnerable users encountering harm online.

The duty of care will apply to companies that provide services which facilitate the sharing of user generated content or user interactions. Requirements will differ according to the service offered and will be proportionate to the size and capabilities of the platform, alongside the risk to users on each platform. Final details regarding companies and services in scope will be published in the full Government response later this year.

To ensure compliance, the regulator will have the power to issue warnings, notices and fines. We are considering the responses to the consultation on senior management liability and business disruption measures, such as ISP blocking, and will set out our final policy position in the full Government response.

Reticulating Splines